How to Make Money As a Whistleblower

The SEC has announced a new award out of its Office of the Whistleblower. Two informants will split $875,000 between them.

"Whistleblowing. Nice concept in theory. Appeals to the inner self and all that. But whistleblowers end up penniless and ostracized. This thing'll take years to get to court, while your life will be ruined tomorrow." - "Boston Legal" A Greater Good

NEW YORK (MainStreet) The SEC has announced a new award out of its Office of the Whistleblower. Two informants will split $875,000 between them for reporting information that helped the agency to bring an unspecified enforcement action. These are the seventh and eighth payments out of this office since it was created in 2011. This is a big win for corporate reporting but it also renews an important issue about whistleblower protection.

Dodd-Frank just isn't enough.

One of the biggest untold stories from the Great Recession remains how many people knew it was coming well ahead of time. Contrary to popular belief, lots of people knew and could have known just how bad the securities market had gotten. The bankers working on Wall Street, the guys actually trading these papers, knew exactly what was coming. They kept quiet for a very good reason: common sense.

Before the Recession blowing the whistle on corporate wrongdoing was a plan for martyrs, not heroes. Whistleblowers got fired and became virtually unemployable. They went broke trying to find new work and got sued over issues like breach of confidentiality and trade secrets. It's a dirty little secret, after all, about spilling your company's dirty little secrets: employees are generally under contract not to do that.